As many of you have experienced, employee attraction & retention is getting to be a major pain in the butt.
The “normal” way of doing things is no longer held sacred by the current workforce. The pandemic has shown people that they have choices—and they are exercising their power to seek jobs with better pay, perks, remote working opportunities, and less corporate nonsense (like micro managers or useless meetings).
This trend of talent scarcity and increased turnover, which began as the Covid Crisis started to wane and workers were asked to return to the office, has been dubbed the Great Resignation. The data is sobering.
Looking at the Bureau of Labor Statistics figures, we can see that the turnover rate for private industry nationwide was over 52% percent in 2021. That means over half of the employees in the private sector took a walk last year. The true cost of this is staggering. I have seen estimates that losing a teammate, hiring, onboard and training can cost up to 300% of the role’s annual salary.
While the hardest-hit industry was hotel and restaurants with a shocking 86.3% turnover, professional and business services was also far higher than the average, at 64.2%.
You can’t really build a great business when 2 out of 3 employees quit every year. So, what can an individual business owner do about this?
Things to change
What employees want nowadays is options and flexibility.
- Good communication
- Highlight some degree of flexibility in your recruitment copy.
- Survey current employees to find what flexibility means to them and which areas they would most like to see it.
- Could you make things work if everyone is remote one day per week?
- Could you replace most meetings with a quick Zoom call rather than a soul-sucking, in-person waste of time? And carefully ask, “Who needs to know?” AND, could an email replace a meeting?
- Research other benefit options – not everyone is interested in Medical and Dental.
- Are stock options or profit sharing plans a viable trade for lower initial salary?
Regarding the last bullet-point: offering some form of stock ownership or revenue share is an excellent way to retain employees. They now have “skin in the game” and are likelier to stick around to participate in your company’s growth.
To that end, another critical point is to INCREASE YOUR VALUATION—which makes everyone’s individual stake more valuable in turn. Increasing valuation happens to be our specialty at VoloHaus.
The way we have a direct impact on value is through revenue generation. Our Revenue Power System gets your revenue generation into shape so you can scale up.
I don’t have the space to cover exactly how we do it here, but you can get in-depth info with this video and written explanation.
Essentially, we test and measure the most important KPIs, survey customers and sales staff, secret shop, etc. and come up with a plan that either you execute yourself, or we operate your team as a fractional resource to get it done.
Part of it is diversifying verticals to open new revenue channels, but a lot of it is simply creating a system where the owners are not necessary for the biz to win, and which others can operate and scale.
And using the above tools, plus Predictive Index, to hire sales professionals that will WIN!
All of this adds up to a better place to work and a lot more money coming through the door. If you combine this with offering more options and flexibility to employees and giving THEM a share of your growth, you will find the Great Resignation won’t be as big of an issue as it is for other businesses.
Again, please take a couple of minutes to watch the video on this page and read my story, because I would love to work with you if your business makes a good fit.
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